6 regular season games will be played on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
March 7, Saturday
Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) vs UNICS (Russia)
Time: 16:00 (16:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, CEC Nagorny
Broadcast: Match! Strana
Nizhny Novgorod: Last week they brought us a sensation by stopping Loko. This victory has allowed them to come back into the group of team which are tightly fighting for the playoffs. But Zoran Lukic mentioned that every game for his team is vital right now. Moreover they are going to play second tough game in a row against the team from top-4, and their streak of home games will be finished with another tough game with Zenit. The biggest problem of Nizhny is still defence, which is even worse at home games: they are third from the last (92,4 points per game) after Zielona Gora and Avtodor.
UNICS: They are certainly favourites if we look up on the stats: in 22 games against Nizhny they won 18 times. But in the first round Nizhny showed that they are not afraid of mighty opponents: UNICS barely came back in the ending. But to be honest, they had some troubles with entering the season: the win over Nizhny helped them to equal their stat in terms of won and lost games. What’s for now, they found their game and won 4 out of 5 games. In Eurocup both teams failed – they both lost to teams from France, Nizhny to Dijon and UNICS to Monaco and what’s more, UNICS have only scored 60 points.
Tsmoki-Minsk (Belarus) vs Zielona Gora (Poland)
Time: 16:30 (16:30 МSК)
Place: Belarus, Minsk, Falcon Club
Broadcast: League’s web-site
Tsmoki-Minsk: Even after losing to Avtodor, they haven’t lost their chances to enter the playoffs. But with each coming round these chances may become theoretical or they can even disappear in case of lost game to Poles. But if we take results of 5 last games of Zielona Gora and “Dragons” we will find that they are identical: both teams have only one victory. And even assuming the fact that this is a home game for Tsmoki, we should take guests as favourites. The team of Rostislav Vergun are not lucky in their home games (only 2 wins in 8 games) while Zielona Gora won 4 out of 9 games on the road and they are also better than Tsmoki in other stats.
Zielona Gora: First game between these two teams in this season ended with a tough victory of the Poles. During this thrilling game Zielona Gora was down by 13 but with the help of 11:0 streak they have manage to turn the game into the overtime, where they have beaten Tsmoki. The team of Zan Tabak have all chances to climb back into the top-8 even in this round, which is very important because it would be hard to get any points in games against Khimki and CSKA.
March 8, Sunday
Astana (Kazakhstan) vs Kalev (Estonia)
Time: 15:00 (12:00 МSК)
Place: Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, Saryarka Velodrome
Broadcast: League’s web-site
Astana: In the last round they have managed to win second game on the road. It took them 2 months to make this – they haven’t won on the road since the 22 of December. What’s for now, they have to prove that they are home team: in this season they won each rival for the place in top-8 except Nizhny Novgorod. Formally they are 6th in the league but they can both climb higher or get kicked from top-8 in this round.
Kalev: Benefit of Kyle Vinales (23+8 rebounds+7 assists) in the first round helped Kalev to beat Astana with the difference of 8 points. That is why Kalev will be higher in the table even if they lose with the difference of 7 or less. But without a doubt they are not counting points in face to face games right now, they must win this game for sure to stay in top-8. Their chances look good for now because the game against Loko in the next round will be the last meeting with teams from top-4 for them. After that they will face their direct rivals (some of them may already be out of playoffs, for example Tsmoki-Minsk). Their roster is also getting stronger — in the game with Astana we will see their new point guard Tekele Cotton.
Enisey (Russia) vs Zenit (Russia)
Time: 18:00 (14:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Krasnoyarsk, Arena Sever
Broadcast: League’s web-site
Enisey: Up until recently Enisey was the best home team of the league as they won CSKA and Loko at home. But currently they have slowed down and in three home games in the row they have only beaten Kalev and went down to the 9th place in the table. This game against Zenit is their last chance to rise the winning percent to 50. But it would be hard. Drazen Anzulovic pointed out that it would be a really hard game for Enisey without 3 foreign players. First of all they suffer from the lack of their leader Davion Berry. Without their best offensive player they only scored 64 points in the game with Astana which is season abysmal record.
Zenit: The game in Krasnoyarsk will be the debut of Xavi Pascual in the United League as head coach of Zenit. After the dismissal of Joan Plaza, they managed to break a series of defeats, but PARMA was beaten under the leadership of the acting head coach Sergei Wozniuk. However, in the Euroleague, they have already played three games under the leadership of a new coach. First, in a dramatic fight, Zenit lost to the Alba and CSKA, and then in an even more intense thriller, they defeated the Zalgiris in overtime. The victory over the Enisey could be a turning point for the Zenit at the end of the season. Remember that while in the home games Zenit still plays the worst in the League (1 victory in 8 games), then on the road they team, on the other hand, have 6 wins. They should be pretty optimistic with stats of face-to-face meetings with Enisey – in 11 games they have never been able to beat their opponents.
March 9, Monday
Lokomotiv-Kuban (Russia) vs CSKA (Russia)
Time: 15:00 (15:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Krasnodar, Basket Hall
Broadcast: Match TV
Lokomotiv-Kuban: In the game of the week Loko, who was stopped in the last round, will try to return to the race for second place. To do this, they need to take revenge from CSKA for the defeat in the first round. By the way, it was when CSKA was able to overtake Loko and remove them from the second line. Now the situation for Lokomotiv is quite complicated – after they lost to Nizhny for the first time under the coaching of Evgeny Pashutin and lost an 8-game winning streak, Loko is one victory behind CSKA. At the same time, even in case of a successful result of the game, there is no guarantee that they will beat CSKA in the table – for this they need to win with a difference of +10.
CSKA: Although the army team has only three days to rest and prepare before the game with Lokomotiv, they are in a good mood for the central game of the tour. On Thursday, CSKA in the Euroleague did not leave a stone unturned by the defense of the Greek Panathinaikos, defeating the Greeks with a difference of +31 in Athens. Prior to this, in a much more intense game, Muscovites broke the resistance of Zenit due to the powerful performance of Mike James, who scored 27 points. The duel James-Kulagin can become a decoration of a game with Loko; it was CSKA guard who became the hero of the first game with 22 points, and 5 of them became key in the end of the meeting.
Khimki (Russia) vs Avtodor (Russia)
Time: 17:00 (17:00 МSК)
Place: Russia, Khimki, BCMO
Broadcast: Match! Strana
Khimki: They keep fighting on two battlefields. They are absolute leaders of the United League but they keep competing for playoffs in Euroleague. This week the team of Rimas Kurtinaitis lost to Zalgiris and they will have to meet Fenerbahce three days before the game with Avtodor. By the way, in the last game Aleksey Shved made a great achievement – 5000 points for Khimki. But the game will depend on the duel between the front lines, where Khimki got a lot of injuried players but they have powerful Devin Booked, which has become League’s MVP of the February with stats of 23,7 points and 6,7 rebounds per game.
Avtodor: After a lot of defeats in the row, the black streak of Avtodor finally broke – in the game against Tsmoki, Donaldas Kairys won his first game as a Saratov coach. However, it’s too early to talk about overcoming the crisis: after all, now they will have to meet not with the neighbours, but with the leaders of the regular season. Avtodor has not defeated Khimki since May 2018, and this season they team also demonstrate an unusually weak offence. They are on the 12th place in assists and in the percentage of two-point shots, the worst in three pointers (32.5%) and only 11th in efficiency. The difference in class was clearly shown by the first round game where Khimki won on the road with a difference of 17 points.
